Wondering what to offer on Skillshare? Read more about topics that our members most frequently search for to inform your future classes, 1-on-1s, and digital products.
In this article:
- Complete List of Categories on Skillshare lists the top level subcategories (what we call content areas) that we actively source content for. Check to see if your content fits into our current list.
- Content that focuses or touches on restricted topics may be removed by our Moderation team. Our guidelines for what content we prohibit varies by offering:
How to Use This Data
New and existing teachers frequently reach out to us and ask what they should offer on Skillshare. We’ve put together a list of some in-demand and frequently searched-for topics on Skillshare, broken down by our top categories.
There are two ways you can use this list:
- Pair this information about in-demand topics with the Choose Your Class Topic article. Start by identifying what you’re passionate about teaching, and then review this list to see which keywords or topic areas can further refine that and point you in a specific direction.
- Plan Your Class first, and then return to this list to pull out relevant keywords. Include these in your class title, class description, and class skills tags to help your class get discovered by students.
You can adapt these same strategies for planning a 1-on-1 Session or creating a digital product for Skillshare.
Where applicable, we’ve also included Areas of Opportunity on this page: specific topics that we want to grow in our catalog and have current content gaps in. We are actively sourcing for these!
Overall Search Insights
In Q1 2025 (January 1 to March 31 2025) we saw no changes to our top search terms on Skillshare: Blender, Procreate, watercolor, drawing, graphic design, illustration, photography, After Effects, Figma, Canva, and animation. There is consistent demand for these areas.
In addition, some specific callouts regarding terms we‘re seeing search demand fluctuations for:
- We’re seeing consistent demand for creative tools like Notion and Adobe Photoshop. Capcut also continues to slowly rise in the ranks.
- Animation remains stable as a top search term. While Nomad Sculpt saw a slight drop this quarter, we’ve been seeing small, consistent increases in demand for Unity and open-source platform Krita.
- In Art & Illustration, watercolor, illustration and drawing continue to dominate. Character design also broke into the top 50 search terms for the first time.
General Areas of Opportunity
Beyond leveraging these terms for your class topic and positioning, consider how your class format and engagement tactics can help your students keep momentum with the new habits they’re forming and spend more time with your classes. Here are a couple tools to keep in mind:
- Challenge and project-centered classes perform best in terms of increased student engagement. We’ve also seen success with short-form classes focused on specific tools or software.
- Give feedback on student projects as early and often as possible! Encouraging your students is a great way to establish connections. Plus, we know that students who receive feedback on their project uploads are more likely to return to your classes and spend time on Skillshare.
- Use class discussions strategically with your students, in addition to general discussions from your teacher profile. Class discussions are a great way to check in with existing students in specific classes and resurface other classes in your catalog. You can also prompt students to post their projects, and offer support. Consider focusing your energy on classes that have the most activity to maintain that momentum, rather than posting broadly across all of your classes.
Demand for Digital Products
We’re continuing to see the strongest demand for Procreate-related digital products, including things like brushes, pattern templates, or bundled toolkits. Other types of products that have seen some movement are drawing guides, fonts, and software guides.
In-Demand Topics
Last updated: April 10, 2025
This data represents the top search terms in English on Skillshare by our member community for the period January 1 to March 31, 2025, with areas of opportunity where applicable.
Art & Illustration
Top Search Terms: Procreate, watercolor, drawing, illustration, Adobe Illustrator, gouache, character design, painting, digital art, sketching, lettering.
Areas of Opportunity:
- Highlight class outcomes. Having the final project visible in the class thumbnail and making it clear what students will do in this class is a best practice for this category.
- Challenge classes often see a lot of success on Skillshare. Consider how your Art & Illustration classes can help your audience build their creative habits.
Design
Top Search Terms:graphic design, Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Canva, Affinity Designer, logo design, Adobe Indesign, logo, web design.
Areas of Opportunity:
- Canva, Figma and Photoshop remain the most consistently popular tools in this category.
Creative Career
Top Search Terms: branding, Etsy, Instagram, LinkedIn, newsletter, Patreon, Pinterest, podcasting, Reels, Shopify, Shorts, social media, Substack, TikTok.
Areas of Opportunity:
- Regardless of your topic, think about how you’ve leveraged these tools to grow your own business. Many students are looking to launch and grow their own business and want to figure out how to use these tools to do so!
Film & Video
Top Search Terms:Adobe After Effects, film, YouTube, DaVinci Resolve, video editing, CapCut, Adobe Premiere Pro, motion graphics, VFX, Final Cut Pro.
Areas of Opportunity:
- Demand for Capcut and Final Cut Pro continue to grow consistently.
- Consider how you could leverage short classes, either quick tips or highlights, as an entry point to your long-form classes that go deeper in technique.
Photography
Top Search Terms: food photography, iPhone photography, Lightroom, photo editing, portraits, product photography.
Areas of Opportunity:
- Consider how you could show the outcome of your class right out of the gate — the final project — to incentive students.
Animation & 3D
Top Search Terms:Blender, animation, Unreal Engine, Cinema 4d, ZBrush, Procreate Dreams, Unity, Maya, 2D animation, Sketchup.
Areas of Opportunity:
- Animation remains stable as a top search term. While Nomad Sculpt saw a slight drop this quarter, we’ve been seeing small, consistent increases in demand for Unity and open-source platform Krita.
- Blender continues to trend high across search! Seeking Blender classes at all levels, particularly advanced-level classes.
Crafts & DIY
Top Search Terms: crochet, embroidery, fashion, fashion design, knitting, sewing, woodworking.
Areas of Opportunity:
- Demand for embroidery, knitting, and crochet is consistent.
- Consider how you can encourage your students to stick with their practice via building daily habits and baking practice time into their routine.
AI & Innovation
Top Search Terms: Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT, Midjourney.
Creativity & Inspiration
Top Search Terms: portfolio, portfolio development, journaling.
Music & Audio
Top Search Terms: Ableton, FL Studio, guitar, music production, music theory, piano, singing.
Areas of Opportunity:
- Intermediate and advanced-level classes in any of the following topics: guitar, piano, singing, and music theory.
Productivity
Top Search Terms: Notion, Airtable, bullet journal, journaling, Obsidian, project management, time management.
Writing & Publishing
Top Search Terms: blogging, content writing, copywriting, creative writing, storytelling.
Marketing & Business
Top Search Terms: branding, digital marketing, Google ads, Instagram marketing, Microsoft Excel, SEO, social media marketing.
Development
Top Search Terms: C, coding, Elementor, Framer, Javascript, Python, web development, Wordpress.
Home & Lifestyle
Top Search Terms: baking, cooking, dance, interior design, mindfulness, organization, yoga.
Personal Development
Top Search Terms: journaling, meditation.